Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the funny-for-the-win dept

Well, this week goes to the comedians, hands down. Funny votes soared past Insightful votes, and several of the top funny comments are ranked highly on the insightful side despite having far fewer votes there, since competition was apparently thin. But the insight we got was still good, and so we open with our most insightful comment, in which Gothenem looked at a recent gag order and called the law out on its double standard regarding the definition of a journalist:

"No person covered by this order shall make any statement to members of any television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet (including, but not limited to, bloggers), or other media organization about this case, other than matters of public record, that could interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice Defendant, the Government, or the administration of justice.... "

This is a court statement that Television, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, AND Internet (including, but not limited to bloggers) are all media (by the words or other media, suggesting that all the previous are part of media). Maybe this will finally put to rest statements like "Bloggers are not journalists". Since this is an official court stance, it can be called into other court cases as being "on the record". Perhaps Senator Feinstein needs to expand her Shield law (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-feinstein-during-shield-law-debate-real-journalists-draw-salaries.shtml) to include all of the above. Otherwise, the courts need to drop Internet (including but not limited to bloggers) from their order.

You can't have it both ways. Either bloggers are journalists or they are not. You can't have them be journalists when it suits your purpose, but when it doesn't suit your purpose, suddenly they aren't.

In the film, a fake cable industry representative (Nick Smith) promises poor service, underwhelming broadband speeds, and a "plethora of hidden fees," before educating viewers on the finer points of what being an oligopoly really means.

I thought truth was an absolute defense to defamation.

Of course, this was a Canadian defamation claim, and our libel laws are much closer to those of everyone's favourite libel tourism destination, the UK (and in some ways even worse) so the fight would not be a fun one, even if victory was ultimately likely.

Ah, so the TSA is selling indulgences. $85 and your soul will be absolved of terrorism.

After all, 3.4oz of sacramental wine just isn't enough.

Finally, we've got a response to the NSA's troubling use of the wildcard "...and others" in its list of people it needs to keep an eye on. DCX2 ran with the inspiration and offered the agency a catchy new slogan:

Reader Comments

Bullshit

As the guy who complained about Techdirt's "First Word/Last Word" program, I feel the need to point out:

"When one commenter objected to those feature spots being 'paid' rather than a reflection of votes or editor's choices, an anonymous responder was driven to sarcasm by the myopia of that complaint."

There's no need to place the word "paid" between quotation marks when that's exactly the nature of those spots. If it were ads rather than comments, the FTC would be all over Techdirt's ass for not making the paid-for nature of these spots more evident.

"If only there was a list of top-rated posts plus posts selected by Techdirt's editors. Maybe this list could be posted weekly and then we could comment on it."

The fact that I was commenting on just such a thread did not escape me. Posting weekly summaries of top comments does not preclude those comments being featured within their respective stories the moment they cross a certain threshold. Yes, it's a funny post at my expense, but it's also a counterpoint to an imaginary argument.